


Last Call

by DangerFloof



Series: A Two Parent, Two Bottles of Wine a Night Job [13]
Category: Bob's Burgers (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Coming of Age, Complete, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Friendship, Growing Up, Illegal Activities, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Revenge, Teen Angst, Teenagers, Underage Drug Use, Vandalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23834977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangerFloof/pseuds/DangerFloof
Summary: A plan this important requires the best and brightest crew Louise Belcher can assemble.  And that’s why, glancing around her crowded bedroom, she knows it’s going to take a miracle to pull this one off.
Series: A Two Parent, Two Bottles of Wine a Night Job [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1052096
Comments: 21
Kudos: 26





	1. ONE

A plan this important requires the best and brightest crew Louise Belcher can assemble. And that’s why, glancing around her crowded bedroom, she knows it’s going to take a miracle to pull _this_ one off.

Tina, home for her final visit before she flies off to England, immediately nominated herself the official brainstorming secretary, and is jotting down their ideas in her favorite Clydesdale notebook. Gene holds up the new-to-him iPad he got for his last birthday so Nat can Zoom in. Jocelyn, her ankles swollen from six straight hours of salad prep and assembly at the Pesto’s place, is glad to relax in Louise’s desk chair, stroking her ever-expanding belly and sipping a can of ginger ale, hiccuping softly into her hand. Jessica and Rudy are in attendance too, but Louise is so mad at her best friends she can barely look at them.

“Okay. So,” Louise begins, giving her hands a light clap. “I’m calling the first meeting of Operation Vengeance to order.”

“Are we wedded to that name?” Tina glances at her sister over the rim of her thick glasses. It took her two days to drive from Chicago to Seymore’s Bay, her things stuffed in a rented minivan, and she’s giving her eyes a break from contacts.

“I like— _The Revenge Society_ ,” Gene says with a flourish.

Rudy nods approvingly. “Oh, that’s good!”

“How about the Sorority of Spite?” Tina suggests.

“People, please!” Louise glowers at them all. “Focus! According to our woman on the inside—“ she gestures to Jocelyn, “—Tammy’s graduation party is tomorrow night. That gives us just over 24 hours to plan this thing!”

“I’m due to pick them up at 17:30 hours, and return them at some time between 23:00-24:00 hours,” Nat says briskly. Though she seems to be at home on her couch, Nat’s still wearing her visor as usual, and a lavender shirt printed with little pink komodo dragons.

“And sunset is 7:30, but I don’t think we should start until 9:30-10:00 or so—“

Whatever Tina was going to say is cut off by a long, terrible, stomach-churning burp, the kind of burp everyone in the room can almost taste as well as smell. All eyes swivel to Jocelyn.

“Oh my God!” Jessica groans, pulling the collar of her t-shirt over her nose.

Rudy pulls out his inhaler but doesn’t take a puff yet.

“Excuse me, Tina. Sorry, everyone.” Jocelyn sighs, rubbing her round belly. She takes a sip of ginger ale, and stifles a tiny little aftershock hiccup. “Baby wanted garlic bread for lunch.”

“I’m not mad, I’m impressed,” Tina smiles. After living with Gene, she’s almost impossible to offend with bodily functions.

“Teach me your ways, woman!” Gene demands.

Louise groans and pinches the bridge of her nose. “You’re my friends and family and I love you but you’re terrible, you’re all terrible.”

“Alright, Bunny Girl has a point,” Nat says. “We have a lot to do and not much time in which to do it. My idea; we stick four hundred plastic forks in their lawn and break off the handles. It’ll take forever to pull them out.”

“And forever to stick them in,” Jessica counters. “You won’t have that much time—“

“And you’ll be out in the open for too long,” Rudy agrees.

Louise throws a dirty look at them both. Rudy, at least, has the decency to look abashed, but Jessica meets her gaze without a hint of shame. While they're willing to help plan this caper—even buy supplies if needed—they agreed that they can’t help with the execution.

_“Louise, I have scholarships that could be revoked if I get a police record,” Jessica told her earlier in the week at lunch._

_“Yeah, me too,” Rudy sighed. “I’m sorry. But we can help you plan!”_

_“Oh gee, thanks, that’s **so**_ _generous of you!”_

But ultimately, Louise had to take them up on their offer, as they all knew she would. Jessica and Rudy are her smartest friends, after all. Revenge is just too important to Louise—she can’t risk failing because she wouldn’t take every bit of the (totally lame and inadequate) help offered to her.

“Okay, a forked-up front lawn is a no-go,” Nat says cheerfully. “What’s next?”

“Where do _you_ want to focus, Louise?” Tina asks her sister.

“And remember, non-destructive pranks only,” Gene adds with unusual firmness in his voice.

“I remember, _jeez!_ ”

In her calmer moments, Louise can understand Jessica and Rudy’s line of thought, though she doesn’t appreciate it. It’s her sibling’s condition for participation that _really_ grinds her gears. They’re planning revenge _for their mother_ , for crying out loud! Tammy gave Linda a heart attack…and made life harder for Louise and Zeke, but that’s not really the point. Their mother deserves the best, and her brother and sister are setting up barriers to success! So what if a little property is damaged in the process? Mom could have _died!_ Still, Louise recognizes that she needs minions to execute her plan, even if Gene, of all people, is leading a coup against her stellar leadership.

_“I’ll help on one condition,” he told her while he and Louise were Skyping with Tina, who was taking a break from packing the last of her things in Chicago._

_“What’s it gonna cost me? Two or three buckets of Halloween candy?”_

_Gene shot her a dirty look. “We can’t damage any property.”_

_Louise stared at her brother in astonishment. Her siblings exchanged a cross-country glance, and Louise knew they’d already talked it over._

_“I mean it. If we get arrested, Tina could loose her shot at Cambridge, and I’m not loosing my share of the security deposit for my new apartment.”_

_With Gene, this new, responsible large brother acting like a big brother for the first time in their lives, Louise found herself overruled._

“I want to focus on her car, with some pranking to the house.”

“Like, why the house?”

“Because, Jocelyn, they raised her to be an asshole!” Also, Louise wants Tammy to watch her parents suffer and know it’s all her—Tammy’s—fault.

“Oh. Okay. But they have a security system, there’s a sign out front.”

“Fake!” Nat calls out cheerfully from the iPad. “I did a little recon last night. Took some pictures. I Googled the company, and RealTech Security is a hoax. They have a couple of motion detector lights out front and in the back yard, but they’re only useful if someone sees us. No cameras or laser rifles; I checked.”

Louise grins. “Well, that’s good news.”

“But won’t the neighbors see us?” Gene asks.

“They live on one of those culled-the-sack thingies, so they don’t have a lot of neighbors. The old lady who lives across from them is, like, dead, so the house is empty,” Jocelyn drawls. “The one next door with the totally cute son is on vacation in Florida—Tammy’s super jelly and stuff.”

“Wow, nice investigation, Val Girl,” Nat nods approvingly.

“Tammy’s been a real b-word to Jocelyn for eons,” Louise says, both pleased and surprised by Jocelyn’s thoroughness.

“Yeah, and she’s been a total bitch too,” Jocelyn adds with a garlic-scented hiccup.

A pained silence, while everyone else mentally facepalms.

Tina taps her pen against the notebook on her lap. “So. You _really_ don’t think we should wait until late at night?”

Nat shakes her head. “We’ll be cutting it close, but the motion detection lights will go off and wake them up if you wait, and their neighbor will be home too. You don’t want to miss a chance to go mattress dumping.”

Tina raises her brows. “Mattress dumping?”

“Mattress dumping!. See, you take a mattress—I recommend a king size, preferably one of the old ones stuffed with cotton, not polyester—and you push it into their pool. It becomes waterlogged, and it’ll take a crane to pull that thing out!”

Louise is all but bouncing on her toes in excitement.

Gene, however, is skeptical. “Where do we get a mattress? I don’t want to go to the Sofa Queen—“

“The dump!” Nat and Louise shout in unison.

“ _Sh!_ ”

“Oh yeah, right,” Louise hisses from behind her hands. True, their parents are down in the restaurant, but, as Tammy herself once observed, some of the walls of their apartment are almost literally made of paper.

“How are you going to get it to the back yard? You can’t just pull up a van to their front door and unload it,” Jess points out.

Louise glowers at her; if she isn’t willing to help, the least she can do is keep her damn negativity to herself. Still, Jessica has a point, and everyone in the room knows it. 

Her gaze travels to the lineup of bunny ears from years past hanging on her wall. Not for the first time in the past couple of months, she’s tempted to pull a pair down and stick it on her head. Linda, in a wave of nostalgia, took advantage of a fabulous deal Reflections was running on framing objects, and had all three of Louise’s bunny ear hats encased in glass. Inspired by Rudy’s _bar mitzvah_ , Louise began weaning herself off her ears when she was thirteen, though it took her a year to do it; the little silver bunny pendant her father bought her for her birthday that year helped. _Geez, I haven’t thought of that thing in years._

Surprisingly, it’s Jocelyn of all people who figures out the solution to their current problem.

“Why not talk to Legolas and see if he’ll help? Their backyards are butted up against each other.”

“Leg—you mean, Logan?” Tina frowns.

“Sure. Tammy’s family moved in behind them, like, late last year. She’s been trying to hook up with him since they met at the faire.”

Everyone except Nat turns to Louise, who sighs and pinches her nose in frustration. “Great. Just great.”

“What is it, Bunny Girl?”

“They’re friends,” Gene answers.

“We’re friend _ly_!”

“He liked your last selfie.”

“I was horsing around with baby carrots stuck up my nose!”

Tina eyes her pink-cheeked baby sister. “Well, he’s your…whatever…and you’re leading this thing, so if anyone should ask…”

Louise sighs deeply. “ _Fine_. I’ll talk to him. But—wait, okay, I love the mattress dumping, but what about her _car?_ Someone has to wrap her car in Saran-Wrap _._ ”

Nobody misses the way she growls the last word. It’s no secret that Louise is desperate for her own wheels, deeply envious of anyone who has their own, and is convinced Tammy doesn’t deserve the shiny new Kia her parents bought her for graduation.

“I’m enlisting a little help,” Nat says. “You’ll split into two groups. Team one dumps the mattress; team two wraps the car in cling wrap. Mild vandalism, maybe a little bit of littering, but nothing is actually damaged. You should be able to accomplish everything in twenty minutes.”

“ _If_ you can get that Logan guy’s cooperation,” Rudy frowns.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” Louise smiles with more confidence than she feels.

* * * * *

After feeding everyone burgers on the house—even Jess and Rudy, though they don’t deserve them—Louise finally makes it back up to her room. She pulls out her jewelry box, yet another gift from Zeke. It’s covered with chocolate brown leather that’s been twisted to form a grumpy goblin-like face, complete with yellow eyes staring up at her. He gave it to her through Mudflap their first Valentine’s Day, with a little note identifying it as a Grinchel. It’s so ugly and creepy it’s kind of cute, and Louise loves it as much as the jewelry inside—no dragon admires its mountain of gold and gems more than Louise Belcher gloats over her small collection of trinkets. Grinchel guards only her best things, most of which are presents from Zeke.

Besides the gold hoop earrings she wears every day, the box is home to her THC molecule necklace, as well as a trio of gold nose studs and a gold anklet, all from Zeke, all flashy and expensive, and she feels like an empress just looking at them. There’s the silver earrings Al and Gloria presented her with for…something, and of course the bunny pendant, a bit tarnished, still in its velvet box in the corner. She takes it out, cleans it up, and puts it on.

Staring at her phone, Louise contemplates the inevitable. Jocelyn, she decides, is right; a quick Google maps check verifies that the Larson and Bush back yards are almost in perfect alignment with each other, separated only by a strip of public property. If Dingleberry’s willing to go for it, taking the mattress through his yard really _is_ the best idea she can think of, at least, on such short notice. 

She opens her phone and checks her Facebook page. Louise spends little personal time on social media, since maintaining the restaurant’s online presence requires so much attention. She was astonished when, a few days after they played basketball together, Logan pinged her with a friend request on her Facebook account. She was even more astonished when, a few days later, she accepted.

Louise isn’t sure if Logan has her filtered or if he also rarely updates, but she’s seen few posts from him. Mostly selfies (of course), check-ins at bars, a meme or two, stuff like that. Then, three weeks ago, a brief announcement that his mother entered inpatient hospice care. Louise sent him a condolence message that he didn’t answer. Last week he announced his mother’s death, and a few days later, posted a link to Cynthia Bush’s obituary. Since his phone number is listed on his info page, Louise left him a voicemail, but she’s not surprised he hasn’t answered, all things considered.

Louise takes a breath, scrolls through her contacts, and finds his number. _Good think he posted it_ , she thinks to herself. There’s no way in hell she could make a request like this through Messenger.

Logan answers on the third ring. “What do you want, Four-Ears?”

“Hello to you too, Dingleberry.”

“Pleasantries aside, thanks for…well, sorry I didn’t get back to you. Lots to do here. You know.”

“Yeah.” _God, this is such bad timing!_ She begins to nervously play with the pendant, running her thumb along the ears. “Uh, how’s everything going?”

“Oh, just _great!_ ” Logan takes a breath. “Sorry. Dad left for Montana yesterday.”

“Montana?”

“Yeah, he grew up there. Aunt Nettie inherited the ranch. He’s riding horses and fishing and whatever.”

“Huh.” Louise digests this information, trying not to let excitement creep into her voice; at least they won’t have to work around Tom Bush. “I wouldn’t have taken him for the outdoorsy type.”

“I know, right? Anyway, he’s out there doing that, and I’m house sitting. Looking for my own place. Prepping for an interview with Devereaux Hospital.”

“Oh. Well. Good luck.”

“I make my own good luck,” he says with such palpable smugness she wants to reach through the phone and smack him. “Glad you called, actually.”

“You are?”

“Yeah, I felt shitty for not getting back to you, and this spares me the trouble. So, what do you want?”

“What do _I_ want?” Louise laughs a little, preparing herself for combat. “Logan, Logan, _Logan!_ I’m calling to do _you_ a favor, not the other way around.”

“Oh really? And what do you plan to do for me?”

“I thought—no, you probably wouldn’t be up for it.”

“Come off it, Four-Ears.”

“Well, see, I’ve been cooking up this plan—“

“Yeah?”

“And I’d like to extend to you a personal invitation to help execute it.”

“As one _friend_ to another?”

Louise closes her eyes and sighs: _Oh, what the hell!_ “Sure, buddy.”

Logan bursts out laughing. “I _knew_ I’d make you admit it in the end!”

Resisting the urge to throw her phone at the wall, Louise paints a strained smile on her face, because she knows people can hear a smile. “Yeah, you win. Hurray for you. Do you want to hear my fabulous plan or not?”

“Lay it on me, Four-Ears.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back, everyone!


	2. TWO

Tina wipes her sweaty hands against her black leggings. She’s gone on a lot of weird adventures with her siblings, allowed her little sister to lead her in an absurd number of stunts and pranks, but this is the first time she’s ever felt genuinely afraid.

What if Louise backs out of her promise to do non-destructive pranks only? What if they’re caught? What if Tina looses her student visa? _Huh-huh-huh-!_

Tina gives herself a light slap: _snap out of it, girl!_ Though neither she nor Gene entirely trust Louise’s motives, they agree that Tammy has this coming. Not just the way she dropped the Zeke bomb and how it affected their mother, just…sort of for everything. And of course, Louise is leading the way, which is a point in their favor, though this round of pranks is awfully remedial, well below her current standard. Still, say what you will about her, she’s organized, she’s efficient, and having Nat on their side is a definite bonus.

She glances in the mirror and smooths down her cowlick. Tina’s wearing her workout gear, the most comfortable black clothes she has available at the moment. Firmly of the opinion that leggings aren’t pants, and are only suitable for exercise, the fact that she’d wear them to do this attests to her seriousness. Tina swipes on a layer of red lipgloss; she has standards to maintain, after all. She stops in the living room to say goodnight to her parents, who were generous enough to let her borrow their car, since Tina sold hers in Chicago.

Linda, enjoying her evening snack of hummus and cucumbers, looks up from the rerun of Winthorp Manor. “Have fun with your friends, honey. Where are you going again?”

Tina drops the car keys. Thankfully, Louise provided her with an alibi. “Jocelyn invited me over to watch _Pride and Prejudice_.”

“Ooh, Jane Eyre, so romantic!”

“It’s…it’s Jane _Austen_ , Mom.”

“They have air in Austin, right?” Linda snorts. “Are you watching the Keira Knightly or Colin Firth version?”

“Uhhh…” Damn it, she didn’t think about that detail! “I…the Knightly one, I think?”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine Jocelyn sitting through a six-hour Victorian romance!”

Tina sighs deeply. “It’s not _Victorian_ , Mom. It’s _Regency_. Or Georgian, depending on how you—“

“Okay, Tina,” Bob interjects. He takes in her unusual outfit, and gives her a significant look. “Be careful out there, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure.” Tina flees downstairs.

* * * * *

The siblings agreed it would be less suspicious if they left the house separately. Their parents think Gene’s putting in some overtime at the Warf Arts Center, but he really met Mickey to pick out the nastiest mattress possible at the dump and buy the cling wrap. Louise, always eager to kill two birds with one stone, used this as an opportunity to drop off some product to her new friend Daniel on her way to Logan's. A tall, quiet, nerdy guy with messy dark hair and geek-chic glasses, she’s known Daniel by sight for years, but they never really talked until Louise joined Huxley High’s chapter of the Gay Straight Alliance. She considered inviting him to join her on tonight’s mission, but scrapped it, reasoning that she still doesn’t know him well enough.

Frowning, Louise brings her bike to a stop at the light. Lately, it feels like she doesn’t know any of her friends half as well as she thought. Everyone just…has other plans and stuff, and Louise is still astonished that she couldn’t charm or bully anyone to dropping them. She fingers the little bunny pendant around her neck. The chain isn’t quite as long as she remembers, and it stays hidden under her shirt, unless she pulls it out.

Rudy and Jessica, though willing to help her with deals the past two months, proved unreliable on this mission. Andy and Ollie actually _wanted_ to be at work tonight; their dad brought in some fancy-schmancy Italian chef from New York, and the twins are tailing him, trying to absorb his wisdom. As a future restaurant owner she can respect that, but as their oldest friend, one accustomed to steering them around at will, she’s irritated beyond words. Still, oddly enough, it’s the Flowers twins’ refusal that _really_ gets under her skin.

The light changes, and Louise pedals across the street, her brow creased with irritation.

_Saffie and Daffie listened patiently while Louise outlined her plan to them after school. They were sitting outside Moo’s Clues, enjoying the late spring weather and eating soy milk ice cream—Louise’s treat, because she’s found that feeding people dessert helps literally sweeten the deal. The girls exchanged a quick glance—like the Pestos, they communicate easily with eyebrow flicks—and shook their heads in unison._

_“Sorry, Louise,” Saffie sighed. “We can’t prank them.”_

_“It’s bad karma,” Daffie explained._

_“But we’ll put a binding spell on the Larsons for you!”_

_Louise stared at them, her jaw actually drooping a little, before astonishment followed a surprise stab of hurt, which was veiled over with fury. When the Pestos first started dating the girls, Louise expected to tolerate them, for Andy and Ollie’s sakes. It wasn’t long before she discovered that she genuinely liked Daffie, and, after some initial awkwardness, Saffie grew on her too. How dare they let her down—and try to placate her with their mystic woo-woo shit too!_

_Louise’s face twisted angrily, and her words were venomous. “A binding spell. Wow, **that’s**_ _helpful. I did that shit when I was nine.”_

_Wounded, Daffie crumpled a bit, but the words made Saffie sit up a little straighter. Louise always knew Saffie was the dominant twin, suspected there was steel lurking somewhere under all that hippie-dippy fluff, but she’d never seen it before, and certainly never expected it to be directed at her._

_“Yeah, that’s what we do in our religion.” Daffie stares at Louise with unblinking eyes, her voice crisp. “We do it to prevent people from doing harm to themselves or others.”_

_Louise shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She’s taken wry little shots at them before, but the twins didn’t get it—or, she now realized, chose to ignore it—but she’s gone too far this time. “Okay, okay. Sorry.” Then, quietly: “I didn’t mean to—sorry.”_

_Saffie nodded, clearly trying to settle her ruffled feathers, content she made her point._

_“We know it sounds weird to non-magical people,” Daffie said, running a calming hand over her twin’s shoulder. “But it’s part of our religion, and it really works—you’ll see.”_

Louise pedals faster, now just a block away from her destination. She’s sweating with both exercise and embarrassment. She doesn’t get Saffie and Daffie’s…pagan? Wiccan?...beliefs any more than she gets Jess and Rudy’s Jewish ones, but Louise typically respects other people’s religions. Sure, the girls got over it, and Louise knows they’ll never mention it again. Still, Louise still feels shitty that, in her disappointment, in her jealousy of their certainty of a well-ordered universe they can control, she’d lashed out like a petulant brat.

* * * * *

As planned, Tina pulls up to the employee entrance to Wonder Warf, her heart pounding like mad. She texts a smiley face to her brother. The gate opens, and a beat-up white van emerges, Gene grinning like a fool in the passenger seat, Mickey behind the wheel.

“Pull on in!” Mickey motions her forward.

Tina does, groaning softly as she hears small pebbles ping on the car. The Belchermobile from her youth finally died with a whimper last month, and her parents replaced it with a 4-year-old, bottle-green sedan. Far less embarrassing to drive than their old car, the one that idled with a rattling, old-man cough and perpetually dribbled oil, her parents are quite proud of it, and they’ll just _kill_ her if she damages it. Tina double-checks the parking break and locks before she climbs into the back of Mickey’s van, settling on the stinky, lumpy mattress.

“Careful back there, Tina,” Mickey calls cheerfully as he pulls out of the Warf. “I think a family of rats called that mattress a home before we found it.”

“ _Uhhh...!_ ”

“You’re fine,” Gene assures her. “We shooed them away. And I picked up gardening gloves for everyone at the Dollar Store.”

“Just sit on the towel,” Mickey adds.

The van idles at a stoplight. Too late, Tina sees the towel someone courteously laid out for her and scoots over to it, vowing to burn her leggings when she gets home.

* * * * *

Louise lugs her bike up the Bush’s front steps and parks next to the door. The porch light is on, and the front door is open, though the screen door is closed and locked. She bangs on it loudly.

“Hey, dipshit, it’s me!”

“Nice to see you too,” Logan smirks as he unlocks the front door.

They’re both dressed in comfortable black clothing, and Louise has a ski mask tucked into her back pocket. Logan notes Louise’s drawstring backpack.

“What’s with the backpack? You going hiking or something?”

“What’s with the do-rag, Dingle? You joining a biker gang or something?”

Logan runs a hand over the black cloth on his head. “Yeah, speaking of, what’s with all your crazy-ass biker friends? That guy, uh, Creature—“

“Critter.”

“Yeah, and his wife. Some of the others. Lots of bikers around here lately.”

“I dunno,” she shrugs. “Did you steal another kid’s hat?”

“Mrs. Larsen was complaining yesterday that there’s always bikers around her and the family. Wherever they go, there they are, just… _glaring_ at them.”

“Nobody’s mentioned anything to me.”

A heavy silence.

Logan shrugs. “So, when are the others coming?”

Louise pulls her phone out of her pocket. “Uh, about ten minutes from now.”

“You want some tea or something?”

“ _What?_ ”

“You’re a guest.” He rubs the back of his head. “ _Polite_ people who were raised right offer guests refreshments.”

“No thanks, _Mom_.”

Logan glowers at her, and Louise, looking around the pristine, prissy home that Cynthia Bush decorated, immediately recognizes her mistake.

“I’m fine, Dingleberry. You, however, look like shit!”

“Me? I’m a Viking god!” he declares, glad she didn’t make this any more awkward by apologizing, or asking about his feelings.

“Yeah, when are you going to shave that mess? A beard isn’t a substitute for a chin.”

“Aw, shucks babygirl, ah thought yew liked yer men-folk fuzzy!” Logan rubs a hand over his sandy beard. “And for your information, Michelangelo himself chiseled this chin.”

“Oh, you mean the sculptor who gave his men tiny little micropenises?”

“I’ll have you know—no, no. _That_ conversation is adults-only, little Four-Ears!”

Louise turns bright pink, but steps forward into his personal space in a futile attempt to disguise her embarrassment. “I’m a better adult than you are any day of the week, Dingleberry!”

“Says the kid who’s getting ready to prank her enemy’s house!”

“Says the so-called adult who’s helping me!”

They’re toe-to-toe, almost—but not quite—touching. Louise doesn’t know _why_ she’s so ticked off, but something about being called a kid, by that stupid, tall, smug…

Mickey pulls up in the driveway and gives the horn a little toot, destroying the moment.

* * * * *

Tina scoots out of the van, convinced that she’ll never completely wash the rat pee smell off her body. _All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand…or butt_ , she adds, since she sat in it, too.

Logan and Louise run out of the house and meet the new arrivals. Gene passes around the gardening gloves.

“Those things gonna fit you, Monsterhands?”

Louise tucks them into her waistband for safekeeping. “Jealous much, Dingleberry?”

Logan says nothing, but doesn't break eye contact as he pulls his own gloves out of his pockets and puts them on.

“Everyone ready?” Louise asks, determined to ignore him.

She takes a quick look at her team. Tina’s twisting her left glove around her hand, frowning, because of course Tina would be confused by gloves. Gene’s slung his own drawstring backpack, identical to Louise’s, over his shoulder. Louise rolls her eyes; she knows he removed the cling film rolls from their boxes already, ostensibly because the boxes would slow them down, but really because he doesn’t want to litter. She wouldn’t object if they just threw the boxes on the Larsen’s lawn—by the time her team’s done, a little littering will be the least of the family’s problems—but Mr. Responsible naturally wanted avoid it.

“Okay, Baby B, where do we begin?”

“It’ll take all of us to get that over the Larson’s fence,” Logan says, eyeing the large, smelly mattress.

“Amateur.” Louise rolls her eyes. “Leave the ideas to me, Thinkinstein.”

Louise spent a lot of time working this one through. She asked Logan questions about the terrain, and minutely analyzed the photos he sent at her request. The plan, Louise assures them, is simple. Louise will unlock the gate—it’s just a standard double cylinder deadbolt, no biggie, she’s opened dozens of those. The team will pile through the yard with the mattress. Mickey, Tina, and Gene will work on the car while Louise and Logan dump the mattress.

“Dingleberry and I will join you when we’re done,” she adds confidently.

“But why will it take so long for the two of you—“

“Remember, the warning call is ‘Woof-meow! Woof-meow!’”

“Of course it is,” Tina sighs.

“What--?”

But Louise has already picked up her side of the mattress. “Come on, Dingle!”

Mickey opens the Bush’s unlocked front gate, and, with a little maneuvering, Louise and Logan manage to carry the mattress through the backyard. It's heavy and wobbly, torn in some places, chewed-looking in others. The Bush and Larson yards are separated by an open expanse of public land, maybe 70 yards wide, full of tall grass and miscellaneous foliage. It’s dimly lit by a few streetlights, but there’s still plenty of shadows for hiding. The biggest impediment is that each home is built on an incline, so the land acts as a gully during rainy weather. It’s hardly the Grand Canyon, but Louise can tell the terrain will be challenging, even though someone built uneven stairs with a sad little guardrail on each side.

“So, Four-Ears, you think you’re just going to jimmy open a lock? Are you the adventure party’s thief or something?”

“Shut up, Dingle, I’ve got this,” she grins, patting her backpack, the fizz of danger, a challenge, exciting her more than she’d care to admit. Damn, she wishes Zeke were here! He wouldn’t ask stupid questions, and he’d both admire and reward her cleverness. She pulls on her ski mask and adjusts the eyeholes. “Stay here, I’ll signal when I’ve opened it.”

Louise slips through the gate and, crouched low, zig-zags her way through no-man’s land. Crickets chirp, and she passes through swarms of mosquitoes. Finally, she makes it back up the incline to her target.

The Larson’s house is surrounded by a tall fence—white picket, naturally. Louise kneels on the ground and pulls her lock picking kit out of her backpack. The lock on the fence is fairly new, which will help, and there’s a streetlight shining hazily down on her, which can’t hurt, though it does leave her exposed. She wipes the outside of the lock clean, and sprays the inside with a quick burst of lubricant. Satisfied, Louise unrolls her kit, chooses her tension wrench, and, giggling softly, begins.


	3. THREE

It’s a humid evening in mid-May, and Tina can practically feel her straightened hair curling back up. Her face is slick with sweat; no doubt her red gloss is bleeding past her lip line. She wonders, for the thousandth time, why she agreed to this. If she squints, she can dimly see her sister working with absurd slowness, teasing the Larson’s lock open. _Why won’t she hurry up? I’m too old for this! Dad’s going to **kill**_ _me for letting these two do this! We finally made up and here I go, ruining everything! Uhhhhh…!_

No such concerns seem to bother her brother, Mickey, or Logan. Mickey and Logan leaned the mattress against the Bush’s fence, and the three men idly discuss the summer concert schedule for Wonder Warf.

“Crap, I wish John Van Horton and the Music Extrusion were coming just two weeks earlier,” Gene mutters. It’d be a fun thing to do with Dad, and, though not a big fan himself, he does have a nostalgic fondness for the band.

“Well, why not stay? You can leave after July 4th.”

Gene shakes his head at Mickey. “I already put down my deposit on the apartment, and Angelo—one of my roommates—helped me set up an interview at the restaurant where he works.”

This is Gene’s standard answer when anyone asks him to put off his move. While true, it isn’t the real reason why he’s set the date for June 20th and refuses to change it. He figures by that point, his work here in Seymore’s Bay will be done, and any further delay will be senseless and even dangerous procrastination. His baby sister will have graduated high school and turned eighteen, his older sister will already be at Cambridge, and his parents are doing well. Deep down, Gene is far less afraid of failure than of never trying at all, of becoming the talented but bitter hack who never left his home town, who never really put forth an effort, but insists on being treated like the star he never was. _I coulda been a contender_ —those words will never leave Gene Belcher’s mouth, he will be a success come hell or high water! Sticking to his move date is just step one.

“What about you, Tina?” Logan turns to the oldest Belcher.

“Oh, I won’t be here for the concert either.”

“Yeah, I know,” he smirks. Last time he saw her, Linda went on and on about her brilliant Tiny Tina, sniffling that soon she’ll will be BFFs with royalty. “I mean, what’s your plan?”

“Well, I’ll be too busy with school to do much sight-seeing,” she says with an affected air that tells him she plans to do _a lot_ of sight-seeing. “I do want to visit London, though.”

The fact of the matter is Tina’s filled pages and pages of a notebook with her U. K. bucket list, everything from taking the waters at Bath--just like Jane Austen--to eating an authentic full English breakfast, to getting lost in the Victoria and Albert Museum, to learning to wear a fascinator properly, preferably at a real British horse race.

Logan opens his mouth to tell her about his class field trip to Germany when a distant yell from the Larson place makes Gene turn to his sister.

“Was that the signal?”

“Uh, it sounded like ‘oof-my-cow’.”

Mickey and Logan pick up the smelly mattress. “Close enough, Belcher babies,” Mickey says cheerfully.

* * * * *

Louise slips into the Larson’s back yard. Pressed against the fence, she watches through the slats as Moe, Larry, Curly, and Curly Jo navigate the no-man’s land between the two houses. Louise bounces on her toes with excitement. God, they’re so _sloooow!_ She knows she could carry that horrible mattress by herself faster than Mickey and Logan combined. She pulls on her gloves; she’ll never, _ever_ admit they’re a bit tight.

Louise takes a moment to look over the Larson’s back yard. Their house isn’t as big as she expected it to be, and the yard is correspondingly smaller too, absurdly dominated by the oversized in-ground pool and attached Jacuzzi. She growls softly under her breath; the fucker probably costs more than everything the Belchers own combined. Oh, she’s gonna _love_ throwing that dirty-ass mattress in the pool!

The motion-detector lights brighten the yard as she walks over to the exit gate by the house, but she expected that. The idiots didn’t install a proper lock on the gate closest to the street, just a sliding bar closure. No security system, no cameras, no locks worth mentioning…they should be _grateful_ she’s not a robber. Honestly, she’s just pointing out their basic security flaws—she should bill them for her services!

Panting, first Logan, then Mickey enter the yard, but no Tina or Gene in sight.

Louise takes Mickey’s end of the mattress. God, this thing is even more disgusting than she originally thought; she’s glad Gene thought to buy gloves for everyone, because there’s no way in _hell_ she’s touching it with her bare hands. There’s a giant, rusty stain in the center of it, and a whole constellation of smaller marks. Besides needing a crane to pull this thing out, they’ll have to call in a cleaner, too. Sweet!

“What did you do with my siblings, Dingleberry?”

Even in the dim light she can see him roll his eyes. “She’s trying to talk him down off the ledge.”

“Huh?”

“There was a rustling and he thought he saw a—“

Tina, clutching her brother’s shoulder, enters the yard.

“S-s-snake.”

Mickey exhales the resigned sigh of someone who’s had this argument before, knows it’s futile, but feels compelled to try again. “I’m telling you, it was just a rabbit or something.”

Gene’s face is ghostly under the lights, and Louise is confident he’ll wear that drawn, traumatized expression for the next couple of days. Ever since the hilariously disastrous road trip with Nat to the animal sanctuary, Gene’s response to snakes is less shrieking terror and more catatonic horror.

“ _It was a snake_ ,” he insists in a monotone flatter than Tina’s, one that makes Kansas seem mountainous in comparison. “A disgusting, legless, slith-slithering sn--”

Gene turns his head and pukes a fountain into the Larson’s pool.

“Yes!” Louise crows over the disgusted cries of her team.

“ _Shhh!_ ”

Louise affixes Mickey with her best death glare, but she also claps her hands over her mouth. The group stands frozen for a beat, staring at each other with wide eyes. But they hear nothing, see nothing that indicates that neighbors have been alerted to their presence. Louise relaxes and offers Mickey a half-smile as an apology. He nods.

Mickey catches Tina’s glance and nods to the gate. She stares at him blankly in return. He sighs and walks towards the gate, all the while jerking his head, his body language _begging_ her to follow.

“Oh, yeah. Right, right,” Tina mutters under her breath. “Gene, are you—“

Still hunched over the pool, hovering above the sick floating on the surface, Gene turns watery eyes to his big sister. “They don’t have snakes in New York, do they?”

Gene’s sad, tragic voice wrings Tina’s heart. “No,” she assures him. She tactfully refrains from mentioning urban legends regarding the city’s sewers and what slithers out of them. She pulls at his sleeve. “Come on.”

Gene shakes his head, mutters something about snakes.

Louise sighs, adjusting the snug chain around her neck. She’s never understood his fear of snakes, and she has little patience for it, especially now that he’s holding her up; they have less than an hour to complete her plan! “Well, you should go with Tina and Mickey, because snakes like water and—“

Not questioning the differences between a chlorinated pool and a lake or river, Gene yelps and all but jumps over their big sister as he barrels out the front gate.

“Louise, you’re not helping!” Tina hisses over her shoulder as she follows after Gene.

Louise sticks her tongue out at her sister and turns to Logan. “Tiring out back there, old man?”

Logan puts his nose in the air and picks up his side of the mattress. “You wish, kiddo.”

* * * * *

Louise watches the Three Stooges exit the front gate, wondering idly exactly how badly they’ll fuck things up, hoping she’ll have time to save their asses. As always, she wishes she could do it all herself, because at least it will be done _right_.

Logan gives the mattress a nudge. It scrapes loudly on the concrete, echoing in the quiet dark.

“Sh!”

He mouths, _Move it_.

Louise flashes him a one-finger salute, then picks up her end of the mattress. To his surprise, she leads him over to the side of the yard and leans the thing against the fence, quietly giggling the entire time. She motions him over, and digs through her backpack.

“Are you high or something?”

“Nah, that’s for later—look!”

She pulls out an exploded can of biscuits. “Oh yeah,” she coos, stroking the length of the can with her large hand. “All warm and gooey for mommy!”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Planning to do some baking? It’s not that hot out here yet.”

“Idiot.” Louise points at the house. “Look!”

He stares blankly at the Larson’s house, then back at Louise.

She rolls her eyes. “The brick chimney! Sticky biscuits! They’ll have to sand-blast the things off!”

“Didn’t your brother make you promise no destructive pranks?” He nudges her, his eyes sparkling wickedly.

“Yeah, especially with food,” she nods, her own eyes dancing right back. She holds out the bloated container, and he takes a biscuit. “But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right? Besides, it’s not like I’m doing something super destructive, like…I don’t know…sugaring the gas tank or something.”

“Amateur.” Logan pulls off about a third of the dough and takes aim at the wall.

Louise takes a couple of steps forward and throws her biscuit. It hits low, near the ground, with a wet little _thwap_.

“Move closer,” he says, doing so himself. “Aim high.”

Logan’s biscuit sails through the air and hits the wall around the seven-foot mark. Louise assures herself that she’s _not_ impressed, that he’s _not_ her best man on this mission, and that she’d _totally_ slap the smug straight off his face under literally any other circumstance.

“Lucky shot.”

He throws another chunk of dough. This one hits even higher, about a foot to the left of the first one.

“I—look, why don’t I do this part?”

Louise grunts. She knows what he’s smart enough to not say; mainly, that he’s better at this than she is, that his aim is truer, he can throw them higher. She breaks off a wad of dough and holds it out to him.

“On one condition,” she says sternly, pulling the dough out of his reach at the last second.

“What?”

“You know so much? Tell me what kind of prank _you’d_ do.”

“Fine,” he chuckles. He tells her about it as he peppers the Larson’s chimney with sticky chunks of dough.

“Rice in the Jacuzzi! See, you dump in a couple of giant sacks and crank up the heat—“

Louise can envision it now; the entire Jacuzzi filled with fluffy basmati rice, rice overflowing into the pool, the howls of rage from Mr. and Mrs. Larson, Tammy’s tears.

“Oh my God that’s _genius!_ ” Louise exclaims, too excited to notice that she actually complimented Logan Barry Bush. “Do you have rice at home? Crap, there isn’t a 24-hour Walmart around here is there? What about—“

“No, that’ll completely destroy the thing.”

She’s standing so close he can catch the faint tail of her perfume and he’s hit with a wave of nostalgia, the sugary vanilla smell calling up memories of high school parties, good times spent in a haze of beer, bongs, and blowjobs. Good Girls, the ones who wouldn’t put out, wore fruity scents, or that weird cucumber thing. Sweet vanilla was popular with the Bad Girls, and he’s not at all surprised that Louise went in that direction.

“So? They won’t dare call the police, they’ll assume all those hairy, scary bikers did it, especially if _my friend Logan_ puts a bug in their ear, right?”

When the hell did Louise Belcher learn to _do_ that, to angle her head just so, and look up at him with doe eyes full of admiration and teasing promises? Logan, and only Logan, is the big, strong man she can rely on—

Logan shakes his head like a dog shaking off water. “Save that shit for Gimli.”

“Ha-ha, had you going there! Look at your dumb face!” Louise is astonished she made it that far into his defenses. This is a new thing for her, practicing using her feminine wiles to manipulate men, a game she started on a whim, just to see if she can do it. God, men are suckers!

“I just don’t want to go to jail for causing, like, forty-grand worth of property damage. I mean, they’d have to drain and clean the pool, replace the filters, the motor, the—“

“Alright, alright. Jeez, you made your point. Ass.”

* * * * *

“Now look, baby Belchers,” Mickey says, glancing at his companions who, like himself, are crouched low in the shadows of the bushes. “We can do this without setting off the alarm, but we gotta go in with a plan.”

Gene, he can tell, is still fairly useless, his eyes darting this way and that for imaginary snakes. 

Tina nods eagerly. “I read about it and watched some videos. They recommend taking it in all directions—“

Mickey feels a bit better about their odds, though he never thought he’d ever pull a prank this remedial with someone who had to study the technique first. “Be careful not to rock the car or jiggle the door handles. I mean, I _could_ disable the alarm—“

“No property damage,” Gene mutters.

“So we’re going to have to go slowly. Slow and steady wins the race.”

Tina removes a roll of cling film from the heavy bag hanging loosely in Gene’s hand. 

Gene tries to focus on his sister and Mickey as they wrap Tammy’s new red Kia hatchback in layer upon layer of plastic. It’s not terribly exciting viewing, but it distracts him from jumping at every shadow.

They start on either side of the cabin area, Tina by the driver’s side, Mickey across from her at the passenger’s door. Moving carefully, they roll the cling film under the car, across the door, pass it over the roof, on and on until the car is entirely coated in a shiny film of plastic. They empty the entire roll, pick up a new one, and wrap around the car. Tossing the empty cardboard on the ground—Gene glares at it—Mickey grabs another roll. Then another. Then another. Around and around, up and down, vertically, horizontally, diagonally, the car is loosing its shape, cocooned in a web of cling film.

Were he not constantly surveying the area for nosy neighbors and sneaky snakes, Gene would be far more impressed. It’s going to take Tammy _forever_ to remove all that, and if she scratches her own car in the effort…well, it’s her fault, not theirs, right? This is better than egging it, which was Louise’s first idea, or slapping slices of bologna all over it; she read that the acids in the yolks and meat preservatives eat paint. Besides being a terrible waste of good food, it would break his no-damage rule.

Gene does, however, allow for one food prank, a special present for Louise. While Mickey and Tina begin the final roll of cling film, Gene dips into his backpack and pulls out a restaurant-sized carton of instant mashed potatoes, which Gene, mashed potato connoisseur that he is, calls Satan’s foam. He wrestles open the spout, and walks slowly around the front yard, flinging the flakes around like confetti, pouring it out in long rows, paying special attention to the area around the sprinklers.

Tina watches him with a frown. “What?”

Mickey catches on immediately and fills her in, explaining that the sprinklers and morning dew will make the lawn fluffy with potatoes. Tina laughs, and the roll of cling film slips out of her hands. She fumbles, even less dexterous than usual thanks to the too-large gloves that protect her hands from cardboard cuts. She catches it, and for a second is proud of herself for succeeding, but the effort knocks her off balance. Tina slams into the car door, jarring the entire vehicle and setting off the alarm.

**_BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP!_**

The headlights are flashing, the car is practically waving it’s arms and screaming, “Danger, Will Robinson!”

Gene takes off running down the street. “ _Woof-meow! Woof-meow!_ ”

* * * * * 

Meanwhile, Louise and Logan lug the lumpy, awkward mattress over to the pool. Louise hates that she struggles with it more than Logan does—he knows it too, if that shit-eating grin of his means anything. _Man_ does this mattress _reek!_ Even out in the open, it stinks of cat piss, garbage juice, and probably puke too (though that might be Gene’s floating vomit island in the pool), as well as a few other things she can’t identify. And—oh God! Is there…holy crap, there’s something _moving_ in there! 

Emitting a high, girlish whine, Louise plows forward, desperate to get away from the thing, almost knocking Logan into the pool as she goes. He manages to twist out of the way at the last second, and, rather than silently sliding the mattress into the pool, as they planned, they fling it in with a terrific splash, dousing them both with cold water.

“ _Gahgh!_ ” Logan screams through gritted teeth. “What the _fuck_ , Belcher?!?”

But Louise doesn’t care. Dripping wet, she’s backing away from the pool slowly, pointing a shaking finger at what she sees in the water shimmering in the glaring motion detector lights. Still angry, but curious—because what could _possibly_ unnerve that psycho, anyway—Logan takes one look at the pool and jumps behind her with a yelp.

A black ring of filth steadily seeps out of the mattress as it slowly begins sinking as it takes in water. While gross, that was to be expected. No, it’s the _roaches_ that are the problem. Giant, well-fed roaches, bred generation after generation on the finest scraps Seymore’s Bay Municipal Dump has to offer, they’re shining black, most of them easily as long as Louise’s index finger, and there’s a veritable swarm of them crawling out of the various rips and tears in the mattress. Louise can see a fist-sized lump rising—writhing—in the dead center of the mattress.

As if sharing their distress, the car alarm out front begins blaring, and Louise can hear her brother bellowing the code in his best theatre voice. Mickey barrels into the yard and slams the gate behind him.

“Where’s Tina and Gene?” Louise demands as she and her two companions make a dash for the back gate.

“Your brother ran off, Baby B. Tina went after him.”

“Of course.” _But then, maybe that’s for the best_ , she admits to herself, as they reach the exit. They’re going to have to navigate no-man’s land fast, and Tina and Gene probably wouldn’t make it anyway.

Logan and Mickey begin picking their way down hill. Louise secures her backpack on her shoulders. She’d like to lock the gate behind her, to add to the mystery, but clearly there isn’t time. Just as she turns to close it behind her, she makes the terrible mistake of looking at the mattress.

_“No shit, there I was!” Louise will say later, waving her hands. “The lump exploded open like the chestburster in 'Aliens,' and out popped the biggest rat I’ve ever seen in my life! It’s head was this big—“ She pauses to put her two fists together. “And I swear to God—no, **I swear to God**_ _—it turned its head and **stared** at me! It knew what I’d done, and it bared its horrible ratty teeth at me and snarled like it was swearing revenge!”_


	4. FOUR

Louise, Logan, and Mickey make it down the hill and up the incline to the Bush’s yard with astonishing ease and speed. Were her siblings not missing, Louise would crow with victory; as it is, she can only hope they make it safely back to the Bush’s, or have the sense to text her so she knows where she and Mickey should pick them up.

Logan opens the gate. “Oh shit!”

“What?” Louise demands, several paces behind him.

“Fuck, someone called the police!” Critter hisses.

Louise peeks around Logan’s shoulder. Sure enough, she can see the lights from a police car flashing in front of the house.

Crouched low, Logan barrels across the yard, followed closely by Critter and Louise. He quietly opens the unlocked back door and everyone piles inside the Bush’s kitchen. They can hear the cops knocking on the front door, and Louise is willing to bet they’re shining flashlights into the living room.

“Stay in here,” Logan tells them, heading back out to the front of the house.

“Hey, Dingle!”

He turns.

She points to her own head. “Do-rag, dingus!”

He snatches the black bandana from his head and shakes out his golden hair. Shoulders back, oozing confidence from every pore, he strides out to shoo away the cops.

Louise pulls off her mask, shoves it into her bag, and tosses the bag in the cabinet under the sink where the Bush family stores their cleaning supplies. Owning a lock pick kit isn’t illegal, but you need a very good alibi for having one on your person, and that’s not the only questionable item she's holding. She’s tingling with excitement, ready to party once the stupid po-po give up and go-go.

Mickey, however, is obviously riding the edge of a freak out. “I—I can’t go back to prison. I can’t do it!”

Louise gives him a solid slap across the cheek.

His hand flies to his face. Mickey blinks, calming down, returning to his senses. “Thanks.”

Louise can hear Logan at the door, sweet-talking the police. She’s pretty sure it’s Officers Julia and Cliffany. Good; they’re well meaning, but not very bright. Still, she knows they have to get rid of them quickly. Her eyes dart around the kitchen. She hears one of the Officers ask about the white van out front. Mickey’s van, probably crawling with bugs and rats from the mattress. So disgusting, so dirty…

Louise’s eyes brighten. “Follow my lead, Mickey.”

* * * * *

Logan’s smart enough to not invite the cops in. They don’t have a warrant, and without one, they’re like vampires; they can only enter a building if the owner permits it. He flashes his best model-like smile at them both, but particularly Officer Cliffany, who seems most open to it.

“The white van?” Logan hopes it’s not obvious that he’s stalling. “Is it illegal to have a white van parked out front of your house?”

“Well no, but an anonymous call from your cross-the-street neighbor Mrs. Muller indicated that it was most unusual, at this time of night. She wanted us to check up on you.”

Logan’s eyes glimmer wickedly, but he manages not to laugh at Cliffany and her misuse of the word anonymous. “Really? Well…well, you see—“

“Hey Logan, do you want us to do the dining room tonight or—oh, sorry,” Louise says as she enters the living room, trailed by Mickey. “Didn’t realize you have company.”

Louise and Mickey raided the Bush’s cleaning supplies. She’s wearing an apron and has a dust cloth in one hand and a basket of sprays bottles in the other. Mickey’s holding a feather duster.

“Oh!” Logan locks eyes with Louise, and instantly gets it. “Nah, you can come back tomorrow. Thanks for taking care of the kitchen!”

“Great!” Louise smiles brightly.

“Is that your van?” Officer Julia asks her.

Mickey jumps in, relaxing into the role Louise created. “No, officer, it’s mine. Louise and me, we work during the day, so we could only come here at night.”

Louise nods enthusiastically. “Logan wanted to deep clean the house as a surprise for his dad.”

“Yeah,” Logan adds with a sad little sigh. “My dad’s visiting family in Montana…you know, recovering from my mom…“

“RIP,” Officer Julia says, crossing herself.

“So I hired these two. It works out for everyone, I’m not good at cleaning, and Louise especially needs the money, because her family’s so poor.”

“Uh-huh, so poor. I really appreciate the opportunity.” Her smile doesn’t budge, but if looks could kill, Logan would be greasy smear on the wall.

Officer Cliffany frowns. “Mrs. Muller said she saw five people in front of your house moving what appeared to be a mattress.”

“Really?” Logan blinks in bafflement. “Well, there’s only three of us here. I don’t know what she thought she saw, but I didn’t get a new mattress.”

Louise has just a brief moment to admire Logan’s ability to tell the absolute truth and an absolute lie at the same time, when he ruins it by turning to her with a slap-worthy smirk. “Think you’ll be okay with the new tap tomorrow?”

He turns to the police with a condescending little smile. “Mom had a high-tech sink system installed before she…well, you know. Anyway, Louise hadn’t seen anything like it before and—you see the results—we’re soaked!”

The police officers nod. “That makes sense.”

“Yeah, it’s _way_ more complicated than anything I’ve ever seen before. My family barely even has hot water!”

Mickey cuts her a warning glance, but he needn’t have worried; Sergeant Bosco might have been suspicious, but Louise’s palpable sarcasm sails straight over the officers’ heads.

“Well, you kids have a good night,” Officer Julia waves as she and her partner turns to leave.

“Remember Louise, it’s righty-tighty, lefty-loosey,” Officer Cliffany adds as she heads down the porch steps.

“Oh, thanks, I will!”

Logan just barely manages to close the door behind them before he bursts out laughing. “Remember Louise, it’s righty-tighty, lefty-loosey!”

Louise slaps him repeatedly on the arms. “I’ll righty-tighty, lefty-loosey _you_ , motherfucker!”

“Ow! Hey, come on, it’s—ow! Back off, Truck-a-Saurus!”

Mickey finally separates them, physically putting himself between Louise, who’s swinging her slapping hands like bats, and Logan, half-cowering under her blows, protesting through his laughter.

“We’ll give it 10-15 minutes before we go. Louise, have your brother or sister called you?”

Grumbling that she’ll show Logan, _ohhhh_ , she’ll show him, Louise pulls her phone out of her pocket. “Tina just sent a text. They’re at Pancho’s Tacos.”

“Which one?”

Still irritated, she cuts Logan a dirty look. “The one on Riverside. You know, the good one.”

Remembering that’s where he claimed to have dumped her ears, Logan has the good grace to blush. “Well, at least it’s not far from here.”

“Uh-huh.” She begins typing. “I’m letting them know we’ll pick them up.”

Logan flops into one of the pale peach chairs. “God, that was close. Fucking Karen!”

Louise and Mickey take up the couch, and Louise hopes they leave gross dirty wet marks all over it.

“’Karen’ is a racist and misogynistic slur, you pig!”

“Don’t be stu—oh.” Too late, he catches the little smirk tucked in the corner of her mouth.

“Ha-ha! Got you!”

“Uh-huh. Well, Mrs. Muller’s first name really _is_ Karen, and she’s always been _a Karen_. Spying on me. Calling my parents about every damn thing.”

“Wanna TP her house next? Those big-ass trees she has out front are just _dying_ for a papering!”

Logan's eyes brighten, but he catches himself. “Nah. See, Four-Ears, I’m an adult now, I can’t do kid shit like that anymore.” He thinks for a minute. “But the homeowner’s association might have something to say about how overgrown those trees are.”

Louise makes a gagging noise and turns to Mickey. “Is this what happens to people once they turn 25? They go from casual mayhem to HOA bitch-fights?”

Mickey shrugs. “I didn’t. But some people would say I’m not the best role model, Baby B.”

“Is someone scared of growing up?”

“Swear to God, Dingleberry—“

* * * * *

Pancho’s Tacos—the good one, on Riverside—is one of the few 24-hour restaurants in their sleepy little town, with a large area out front so customers can eat _al fresco_ at night, when the indoor dining area is closed. The oldest Belcher siblings order a party pack of food and grab a table; Mickey, and eventually Louise, who refused to ride in his van again, join them. The foursome is one of several groups laughing and talking and munching their way through tacos and burritos and trenches of nachos, so nobody pays much mind to them as they catch each other up on what happened.

“I don’t know, I just…ran! I haven’t run like that since we had to do the mandatory mile thing,” Gene marvels, impressed with his own athletic performance. Of course, having run so fast and far, by his standards, he figures he’s earned three tacos and a sizable portion of the nachos too.

“By the time we stopped running, we were almost at Pancho’s, so we figured, why not?” Tina adds. She’s a sweaty, disheveled mess, but she’s clearly having a hell of a good time, completely unaware that she’s eaten off all her lipgloss, except the bit that got caught in her hair and left little red streaks on her cheeks.

It takes some convincing, but Louise finally agrees to ride back to the Warf in Mickey’s van. The trip is uneventful—Louise doesn’t spot a single roach—and Mickey parts way with the Belcher siblings as they load Louise’s bike into the back of their parent’s car.

“Thanks, Mickey, you were great!” Louise enthuses, so pleased she doesn’t protest when the ex-con pulls her in for a hug.

The siblings are clicking their seatbelts, Tina driving, Louise in the passenger seat, Gene squashed in the back with a bike wheel nudging his shoulder, when the youngest Belcher suggests not going home quite yet.

“Come on, T, let’s have a Kid’s Meeting down by the pier.”

As they aged, “Kid’s Meeting” became a euphemism for hanging out and getting high. Tina frowns. “Out in public?”

“We can go under the pier.”

“What about hobos?”

“There’s three of us,” Louise replies confidently, not mentioning the switchblade in her pocket.

Eventually, after much negotiation, they agree to go to the park, and some time later all three are casually occupying the swings on the southern end of the park, passing around the vape pen Louise tucked into her backpack.

“I can’t believe you finally got a vape!” Gene says, passing it to Louise, who takes a rip, then passes it to Tina.

Tina takes a hit and holds it.

Louise shrugs. “It’s discreet. I—I don’t know, man, I just don’t like edibles much anymore. They hit hard. Well, except the breath strips, they’re cool. I had _sooooo_ many breath strips while Dad had me on lockdown!”

Gene, a passionate fan of cannabis chocolate, shrugs. “Whatever floats your scrote.”

_Zeke._ Louise sighs deeply and motions for Tina to pass the pen.

Tina eyes her little sister and blows a steady stream of vapor into the air. “Careful there, Gene.”

“What? I’m fine. We finally got revenge on Tammy!”

“Yeah, for being an asshole to you.”

“To _Mom_ , Gene, for being an asshole to _Mom_.”

Tina stares at her.

“What?”

Gene groans under his breath. Nobody outside their family would understand what’s happening—Tina’s just staring, not glaring—but he can sense it, even in the park’s dim lighting, Tina’s flat, accusatory look, the one she pulls out rarely, but always effectively.

“You—you think I’m being immature? And using Mom as an excuse to act out?”

As always, Gene’s astonished, both by the force of Tina’s silence, and Louise’s desperate, guilty response to it.

“Well, that’s just…okay! Okay, stop, fine!” Louise tosses her hands in the air in surrender. “Okay, so it was revenge for _everything_ , alright? But…come on, give me a break! We got to have one last big adventure before you two losers run off and act like old farts.”

“We’re growing up, Louise— _all_ of us. We can’t run around doing kids pranks like this anymore.”

“Bullshit! I’ve been an adult since I was born, and I’ll _never_ give up pranking! You’re just chicken shit and making excuses like everyone else!”

Louise tries to swing a bit, hoping to relieve the coil of tension in her chest. She doesn’t make it far, the weed is hitting her hard and she’s swimming. Louise drags her feet in the dust to come to a halt.

Meanwhile, her siblings exchange questioning looks.

“Who’s making excuses? We came with you, didn’t we? We didn’t even know you had a vape with you. Speaking of…” Gene motions for her to pass it over.

Louise glowers at her brother and considers stabbing him in the eye with it. She hands him the pen. “Not just you guys-everyone, I mean _everyone-everyone_! _Especially_ everyone-everyone!”

Louise grumbles low under her breath, partly to buy time, because her thoughts are starting to float away from her. She touches the little bunny pendant at her neck; not only is the chain tighter than she remembers, the pendant itself is so small now! Well, that makes sense; Louise was a late bloomer, so tiny and underdeveloped at thirteen she could easily order off the kid’s menu the few times her family went out for dinner. Using the bunny as an anchor, she gathers her thoughts as best she can, and continues on in a mocking voice.

“It’s all, ‘ _No, I can’t help you because I’m sperminated and can’t run_!’ Or, ‘ _We can’t do jack shit because we'll loose our scholarships!_ ’ Then there’s ‘ _Mr. Fancypants Chef is in town and we have to tail him even though we’re too dumb to learn from him._ ’”

Louise begins giggling, her giggles morphing into an unpleasant, mocking laugh. “Oh, and my favorite—wait, you guys'll love it—they said. Oh God, I gotta quote this one right. ‘ _It’s bad karma, but we’ll put a spell of binding on the Larsons!_ ’ Can you believe it? A spell of binding! What is this, Dungeons and Dragons? Why don’t they promise to throw a magic missile at the house and be done with it? Buncha mystic woo-woo.”

It takes a moment for Louise to realize she’s the only one laughing. She tries to stare down her sister, but Tina wins again, crushing her baby sister with stony silence.

“Okay, I shouldn’t laugh at people’s religions, I already told them I’m sorry! Stop, T!”

“Dang, Tina,” Gene breathes. “You’re _ruthless_ tonight!”

Tina blinks at him. “I’m ruth _ful_ , remember? You know, because...beecause my middle name’s Ruth.”

Gene groans.

Though irritated with her thoughtless baby sister, Tina’s glad to have this conversation with her. She’s worried about Louise, and it's not just the flashes of immaturity, either. Louise has lost weight since Tina last saw her; maybe ten pounds, which doesn’t sound like much, but for Louise, who is naturally slim, it’s a problem. Nobody’s mentioned it, so Tina figures the change has been gradual to people who see her everyday, but she was quite shocked to come home to her sister's thin face and sharp clavicles. Two months ago, Louises was lithe like a model; now she’s lanky, her gentle curves all but gone. She’s seen her sister eat, and she doesn’t run to the bathroom to throw up afterwards, so Tina’s reasonably sure she’s not friends with Ana or Mia. 

Louise is swinging very slowly, very gently, the toe of her shoe dragging in the dust. “All going your separate ways…”

Gene blinks heavily. He hasn’t smoked in a while, so it’s hitting him hard, he’s getting a little dizzy watching his little sister sway back and forth. He grabs the chain to still her. “What do you mean? You had—” He thinks for a long moment, counting on his fingers. “—you had eight people help you.”

“But..but I…you don’t understand, Gene. Everyone has their own crap, their own stuff, and I’m just…”

“Oh, I see,” Tina says in an a-ha voice. “You weren’t their top priority, you’re used to having more helpers.”

“More like an army at my command,” Louise mutters.

“Well, it’s just—Louise, people grow up, have their own priorities. It’s natural.”

“You mean it’s stupid!”

“Hey, sis,” Gene smiles. “Come on, none of this is a news flash for you. Jocelyn obviously can’t prank right now, and this is a huge opportunity for the Pestos. Jess and Rudy got their acceptance letters months ago. And the girls’ve talked about going back to San Fran since they moved here. Why are you acting surprised now?”

Tina frowns. “What’s going on with the Flowers girls?”

Louise sighs deeply; strangely, it’s their desertion that cuts the deepest. “Saffie and Daffie are going back to San Francisco to live with their mom while they go to some new age school to—I don’t know, learn how to Reiki, or wash chakras, or whatever.”

“I thought you’d be into that,” Tina says. “I mean, you liked voodoo, and you never questioned if I was a real witch, and that Japanese spirit thing—“

“Yeah, when I was nine! I don’t have to play powerful badass—I _am_ a powerful badass! And that’s not the point. They’re _leaving_!”

Jessica is her _female_ friend, but Saffie and Daffie are her _girl_ friends, the ones she talks to about…well, girly things. Not that she likes to do it often, but sometimes it’s nice to talk to other girls about curly hair problems, and boys, and frou-frou crap like that. Granted, their hair and skin concoctions make her smell like she ate, prayed and loved too much, but they work, and Louise isn’t one to argue with success. It’s not like talking to Mom or Tina, who are _waaaaay_ too into girly stuff for Louise’s comfort. Louise _is_ a card-carrying member of the Menstruation Nation, just not a militant one.

“And _you guys_ are leaving. I mean, you’ll visit, but it won’t be the same.”

Gene rubs his sister’s shoulder. “You’re getting ready to graduate, everything’s changing. We’ve been there too, right, T?”

“Yeah.”

“But I don’t like change!”

“You mean, you don’t like change you can’t control,” Gene corrects her.

“Same thing!” Weed rarely makes Louise anxious or babble, but she can feel her pulse racing now, and her mouth won’t stop. “I mean, I’ve been thinking so much about _my_ future, and what that means, I guess I just…didn’t…you know…”

Louise growls in frustration. It’s like someone flipped a switch, and the thought is _gone_. Poof. Vanished.

“You didn’t think about anyone else’s futures, or how it would affect you?”

Louise nods. Her big sister gets it.

“It _will_ be different,” Tina says slowly. “Kind of scary. Better in some ways, too. We’ll all have more to talk about, more to share when we see each other.”

“And it’s not like you have to send letters by carrier pigeon or something,” Gene adds. “You’d better Zoom with me weekly!”

“Me too!” Tina adds. “Come on, bring it in, you guys.”

Louise isn’t sure how it happens, but the Belchers end up hugging in a cuddle puddle on the grass, Tina in the middle, cradling her siblings in her arms. They float for a long time together on a gentle mist of Blue Cheese, the quiet punctuated only by soft little sniffles and giggles as they share the vape.

The chain around Louise’s neck cuts into her flesh; she can no longer pretend that it fits her. She takes off the pendant and holds it up in the moonlight, admiring how it shines before her eyes. She’ll clean it up and put it back in its velvet box when she gets home. Louise knows she’ll never wear it again; it represents an era, an idea, a place she can visit in memory, but she can’t go back. She can only go forward.

This is the last great prank she’ll ever pull with Tina and Gene, because that time of their lives is over. She doesn’t know what’s next, but the future is coming, for better or worse, and Louise is determined to meet it head-on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello,
> 
> Woops! I was editing and accidentally hit publish, so...next Thursday came early. Fortunately I was just making minor changes, so it wouldn't have looked much different had I not screwed up anyway.
> 
> Thank you everyone for reading, commenting, and so on. This has certainly become quite the epic, and I appreciate everyone who's willing to take it on.
> 
> The next story should be up in two or three weeks (really). I don't have a title yet, but Zeke makes a return.
> 
> See you soon,  
> DangerFloof


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